


The Grapes and the Cake That Tugged at His Heart

by caliginousmind



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Charles is stubborn and cute, Domestic Fluff, Erik is awkward and romantic, Living Together, M/M, There are cats and grapes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 03:04:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1250359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caliginousmind/pseuds/caliginousmind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Charles' birthday and just about the only gift he wants is a gigantic cake, except there's one problem: he's on a diet. But he's got the best boyfriend ever, who overrules all dietary decisions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Grapes and the Cake That Tugged at His Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swoopswoop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swoopswoop/gifts).



> For the dear swoopswoop on her birthday. It's all about food because I'm on a diet right now and food is yum! The characters are not mine! And I hope y'all like it c:

Charles liked cake. No, actually, Charles adored cake. Any kind; angel cake, chocolate cake, coffee cake, marble cake, sponge cake, pound cake, carrot cake, cupcakes. Any kind. But cake was not good for you, especially when you were trying to be on a diet and your wardrobe was starting to consist of frumpy sweaters and your domestic partner went to the gym nearly every day and was a tall mass of muscle and limbs and rows of teeth. And Charles was not happy with this. Well, no, he was happy; he absolutely adored Erik, he loved him more than all the cakes in the world combined, but still. Erik was tall and strong, ridiculously fit, and Charles was just Charles. And sometimes, though he never said anything, sometimes he felt inadequate, and sometimes he was confused as to why Erik had kept him around for the last seven years.

It still bewildered him that they had been together so long. He met Erik in their last year of school. Charles graduated with years of studying genetics, and Erik was a transfer that year, studying, well, Charles still wasn’t sure. Erik started off as a political science major, then got bored, tried journalism, history, athletic training, and never really settled for any of them. He ended up graduating with a major in art history and a minor in German – Charles thought this was a bit redundant, seeing as Erik grew up in Germany and was already fluent, but, as Erik said, “it’s beside the point.” Anyway, they met in school, both living off-campus in rundown apartments and living off soup cans and takeout, and actual food was near impossible to afford. They met through Hank, Charles’ adopted sister’s boyfriend, who took a class with Erik and called him a “real charmer”, but when Charles was introduced he preferred the term “real nightmare.”

Back in school Erik had been wild and intimidating. A good head taller than Charles, with ginger hair that sometimes got slicked back, sometimes stood up in unruly tufts (this look was Charles’ personal favorite, he called it The Scrub), and a wide intense carcharodon grin saved just for the moments when Charles did or said something particularly embarrassing: this was the Erik Charles looked on first with disdain, then disbelief, and finally utter devotion and dedication.

Erik met Charles once and then, as he said now when reminiscing, couldn’t stay away. It was true, really, Hank brought him over for drinks once, and the next day Erik came back with a bottle of wine and a toothy grin. Charles was annoyed. Hank kept bringing him over, and Charles was getting tired of seeing him and getting tired of Erik asking him question after question about himself and teasing him about his cardigans. One day he’d had enough.

“Hank,” Charles had called from the tiny living room, which was basically a sinking couch with a television in front of it and two flipped over milk crates that served as makeshift coffee tables. Hank popped his head out of the little kitchen, a lone pancake sizzling on a rusty frying pan in one hand.

“Yeah?”

“Can you please stop inviting your friend over?”

“Hank doesn’t have friends,” came the muffled voice of Alex, who was lying face down on the carpet in front of the TV, trying to get rid of a hangover.

“Shut it, you.” Hank’s voice floated in with the scent of cooking batter. “Which friend?”

“The tall one with the teeth,” Charles answered, turning the page of his book and snuggling further into the dipped cushions of the couch.

“You mean Erik?”

“Yeah.”

Hank came in then, the pancake on a plate and blanketed in syrup. He sat next to Charles and pushed up his glasses, which were a bit too big for him and tended to slide down his nose when he moved too much. “I don’t invite him over; he kind of just shows up.”

“That’s because he likes you,” Raven trilled. She came into the living room with a pair of Hank’s boxer shorts and a sports bra. Charles grimaced at her.

“He does not like me, Raven. And for god’s sake, put some clothes on.”

Raven rolled her eyes at him and jumped onto the couch, stretching out with her head on Hank’s shoulder and her feet on Charles’ lap.

“He’s got the hots for Charlie boy,” Alex giggled into the rug. Charles threw his book at him.

“Don’t call me that. And no, he doesn’t. He’s just an immature child who needs constant attention and adoration. And I don’t give that to him so he’s intrigued by me.” He crossed his arms.

“He’s intrigued by you because of the way that booty shakes it on the dance floor.” They all laughed at him, even Hank, and Alex gave Raven an air five for her wit, raising his arm up off the floor and laughing into the carpet.

“I hate all of you,” Charles groaned. Hank gave him an apologetic look, the traitor.

“No you don’t,” Raven sighed. She wiggled her toes into his pocket. “You love us and you’re just upset because for once we’re right and the high and mighty Professor X over here got something wrong.” Charles rolled his eyes at her. This Professor X nickname she thought was so clever was starting to grow on him, though.

Charles continued to internally groan when Erik showed up for movie nights or parties, or when they sat on the creaky wooden porch at night, drinking beer and breathing in the smell of autumn, and staying up late talking about nothing. One rather warm fall night they did this, Hank and Raven sharing the rocking chair, Alex and his friend Darwin leaning against the peeling white house, bouncing pebbles into empty beer bottles, and Charles sitting on the steps with a half empty bottle in one hand, watching the wandering souls walk by in groups, their clothes bathed in yellow street light, just searching for a place to be young again and a place where they half fit. Erik came up to the porch, walking against the crowd, carrying two shopping bags, one in each hand. He stopped at the foot of the steps, smiling.

“I brought grapes,” he said. “Green grapes.” A few days before Charles had been upset. They were all in the kitchen, Raven and Erik sitting on the counter and making fun of Charles as he searched for something, anything, to eat in their depressing kitchen, while Hank tried to help, opening cabinets and finding stale rainbow sprinkles and a container of cinnamon. Alex was off somewhere with Darwin and Sean, he tended to wander more than they did, he tended to be a bit more social. Finally, finding nothing but more alcohol and soup and an opened package of raw spaghetti, Charles threw up his hands in frustration.

“Why is there never any food in this house?” he cried, running his fingers desperately through his brown hair. Raven laughed at him.

“Oh come on,” she said. “Look, we’ve got soup, we can make some noodles, there’s some cereal left, I think.”

“No, I mean real food! Fruits! Vegetables! I haven’t eaten a grape in _months_!” He slumped against the counter. Hank put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

“It’s ok, we’ll go shopping tomorrow,” he said soothingly. Charles shook his head.

“But we have no money.”

“Take some out from the –” Raven began.

“No. No, I’m not giving them the satisfaction.” Charles met her eyes. She looked back, slightly surprised at his tone and saddened by his words. He didn’t get on well with his parents, stemming from their inability to accept his coming out or his personal and career choices. He told himself he could be independent, take out loans and work hard through school, but it was tiring and it was wearing on him. Raven went along with it, because she went along with anything her brother suggested without question. She never blamed him for anything, but he still felt everything was his fault. He felt like crying and he turned away from them when he felt the painful lump rising in his throat and the hot tears stinging his eyes. He didn’t like being weak and he especially didn’t like showing anyone he was.

Erik had gone then. He jumped off the counter, grabbed his things and left without a word. And they hadn’t heard from him until now – they hadn’t worried because he was Erik, and that entitled strange behavior, like bouts of quietness when he sunk into his shell, or awkward goodbyes, like the one time he was leaving at four in the morning and looked at Charles and then sort of flung his arms around him and gave him a long limbed Erik hug. So they hadn’t worried, just wondered, since normally he showed up at their house at least once a day.

But he was here now, carrying two full bags of rich green grapes and holding them out to Charles, an uncomfortable offering. Charles took them and Erik stood there, avoiding his eyes and rubbing the back of his neck, shuffling from foot to foot. Charles had opened one bag, popped a thick, delicious green grape into his mouth, and then patted the space next to him, an open acceptance, invitation. Erik smiled and sat. He took a grape and tossed it at Hank. He grinned at Charles, like a toddler who’s said something silly and wants a laugh, and Charles grinned back.

Erik never really left after that. He lived in an apartment not too far away with a strange group of people he sometimes brought over – Janos, Azazel, Angel, and Emma. But, day by day, his things started appearing among the clutter of Alex’s, Hank’s, Raven’s, and Charles’ stuff, and nobody questioned it. Erik had this natural ease of assimilating. He never seemed to fit anywhere, but when you saw him someplace, it just made sense.

When he finally slept in Charles’ bed he stayed mostly for good, occasionally running off somewhere, but always coming back to slip in beside Charles in the small cozy twin bed, long limbs tangling in the sheets and warm chest Charles liked to rest his cheek against.

And then things just happened from there. They graduated, and rented a cheap little apartment together and got a small orange tabby cat name Mags. Charles started publishing his work, he picked up a rather well-paying job at the local university. Erik did random things; first he was a bartender, then he did some construction work, worked briefly in a bookstore, and finally landed with writing political pieces for a newspaper, and teaching a couple art classes here and there. He worked and travelled often and if anybody asked he’d say his two great loves were Charles and his motorcycle.

And now they were here, living together in a larger apartment, with the same cat Mags, who had grown fat and lazy, as well as some plants that Charles took special care of. And a breakfast bar. Charles had always wanted a wide open kitchen with a breakfast bar, and that was the first thing Erik asked about when they searched for a new home. They were here, seven years from the day they met, on Charles’ twenty-seventh birthday.

It was cold and rainy today. And the sun didn’t stream in through the windows like it should have. Instead the gray clouds billowed in and glared at Charles as he got up. Instead the rain lashed at him through the glass. And he was starving. He, because of this diet he desperately wanted to work, had eaten lettuce with some carrot shavings (“Barely even a salad,” Erik grumbled) for dinner and it hadn’t made him any less hungry. What he would really like this morning would be a stack of French toast smothered in syrup and endless slices of crispy bacon. But the diet.

He got out of bed, no need to be quiet because nothing would disturb Erik from his deep slumber. He pulled on some sweats and a t-shirt. He looked fondly at Erik, sprawled across three quarters of the bed, the sheets wrapping around his long legs and slipping down to his waist, his face burrowed into the pillow, and his hair in fully fledged Scrub mode.

Charles slipped from the room and into the kitchen, closely marked by Mags the cat. He nipped at his owner’s ankles and brushed his tail against his legs. Charles fed him, gazing wistfully at the full bowl of food for a moment, and then opened the fridge.

He ate grapefruit for breakfast, sliced in half with just a pinch of sugar. It was sour, not too bad, but he would have liked something more sufficient. After watering the plants, making coffee for Erik and tea for himself, he sunk down on to the couch with a battered copy of _Frankenstein_.

Pages later two long-fingered hands were placed upon his shoulders and a warm kiss was placed upon his brow.

“Morning, love,” Erik murmured against his forehead. Charles set his book on his stomach and raised his eyes to look at Erik.

“Good morning.” Erik gave him another kiss and went to the kitchen. He poured himself coffee and bent down to give Mags a pat. He looted through the kitchen and came up with a box of cereal and jug of milk. He poured both into a bowl, found a spoon, and leaned against the counter, eating his cereal and watching Charles – the latter was still lying back on the couch, pretending to read.

Erik swallowed a mouthful of cereal and pointed his spoon at Charles. “Did you eat yet?”

“Yes,” Charles replied. He set the book back on his stomach, sure he would be accused again.

“What did you have?”

“Grapefruit.”

“Just grapefruit?” Erik pointed the spoon threateningly at Charles. “That’s not enough.”

“It is too!” Charles said defensively. He turned back to his book defiantly. “Besides, I’m not that hungry.” As he said this his stomach betrayed him and gave a rather loud growl. Judging by Erik’s triumphant expression and exclamatory “aha!” he had heard it.

Charles tried ignoring him the rest of the morning, but it was hard when Erik kept kissing his face and grabbing his book and finally climbed on top of him and snuggled under Charles’ arms. Charles sighed and rested his chin on top of Erik’s head, his book held in his hands and sitting on Erik’s shoulder. It was hard to read because Erik kept rubbing his nose into his shirt and kissing his collarbone. Charles tried not to smile, but he broke when Erik rubbed his face against his arm, his stubble scratching his skin and the movement jostling his book.

Charles gave up and dropped the book on the floor. He wrapped his arms around Erik and held him close. And they stayed like that for a long while, at least until his stomach gave another loud rumble and Erik jumped up and dragged him to the kitchen and poured him a glass of milk that was half full and baked him a large, lopsided vanilla frosted cake, which they ate at eleven in the morning, and periodically for the rest of that day.


End file.
